Leonardo’s Workshop

Leonardo’s Workshop Overview

Do you like to tinker with household items? Ever dreamt of designing a rollercoaster? Maybe you never lost the childhood joy in simply building something. Leonardo’s Workshop is a place where these curiosities can realize themselves with expertly curated engineering and construction activities. Assemble a complicated system on the marble wall! Learn every part of the modern bicycle. Or participate in daily activities with our in-house engineer, Bruce Kizerian, who works on the floor alongside the visitors.

Leonardo’s Workshop Activities

Marble Wall

Explore the laws of physics as you build a path for a marble to run through. Challenge your abilities to plan momentum for a long track or attempt to complete an undulating roller coaster. Visitors of all ages can get creative with this classic interactive engineering wall.

Tinker Table

What can you build with wheels, screws, washers, panels and rope? The possibilities are unlimited! Tinker around with tools and materials to spark your ingenuity. Explore more functionality by combining simple machines, you can refer to the table top chart or view the bike wall for ideas.

Resident Engineer

Visit our Resident Engineer Bruce Kizerian at his personal workshop. Often you will see him there innovating new activities and repairing tech for the museum. Bruce leads our workshop programs Tech-Take-Apart and Cardboard Machines and he is a mentor for the Fix-it-Clinic’s that are periodically hosted at the museum.

Laser Table

Discover the science of optics as you rearrange the prisms on this table. A laser is created when atoms are excited to the same level of energy and release the same color of light. That light then bounces from mirror to mirror in its’ enclosure until there is enough light reflected to create a beam. Experiment with the path of laser beams using a variety of prism shapes and observe the results.

Simple Machines

It was scientist Galileo who theorized a machine was simply a device for transforming one kind of energy into another. Simple machines combined create a complex system for transforming that energy. Take a look at our bike wall to see what simple machines are used in its design. Refer to the list of simple machines there as you continue to tinker throughout the make space.

Young Inventors

The youngest visitors to the museum can start their engineering explorations early at Leonardo’s Workshop. This young inventors zone is a space for building with big soft bricks and buckets of tubes and connectors. Construct on a large scale or explore with pixels using a table top of colorful blocks.

This make space is included with general admission

Leonardo’s Workshop Schedule of Events

Tech Take-Apart

This program gives you permission to open up all sorts of tech and appliances just to see how they work. Get your safety goggles on and grab some tools, our Resident Engineer is ready to guide you through this activity!

There are no upcoming Tech Take-Apart or Cardboard Machines activities scheduled. Check back often for updates or follow us on social media for all the latest announcements.

The Leonardo da Vinci Connection

Leonardo da Vinci meticulously observed the way things work. He studied animals, humans and machines; he wanted to better understand the worlds complexities and deconstruct their inner functions. Through his own tinkering with machinery, Leonardo da Vinci may have actually designed the world’s first robot. His self-propelled cart was powered by coils, it could brake and it could steer itself! The cart was capable of autonomously driving forward and it could be programmed with pre-set angles.